Madrid Spain.- The trumpeter, arranger and conductor Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill, known as “the architect of Afro-Cuban jazz”, was born in Havana on October 28, 1921 and died in New York on June 27, 2001.
As a teenager, his parents sent him to study at a military academy in the United States. There he not only learned to play the trumpet but he was enchanted with the music of the time, fundamentally that of the Big Bands.
Back in Havana, he began to study law, but would leave it to dedicate himself completely to music.
To develop as an arranger, in 1948 he moved to New York, where bebop was fashionable with Chano Well as one of its main exponents.
There he links up with the already renowned musicians, also Cuban, Mario Bauzá and Frank Grillo (Machito).
Chico O’Farrill then writes the song “Gone City” for Machito’s orchestra and thereby attracts the attention of producer Norman Granz, who commissions him to produce the first extensive piece of Afro-Cuban jazz: “Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite”.
Internationally famous figures such as Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich and Flip Phillips participated in the recording of “Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite”.
From then on he made a series of compositions that would transcend music history: “Cuban Episode”, for Stan Kenton; “Suite Manteca” and “Gold, frankincense and myrrh”, for Dizzy Gillespie; “Three Afro Cuban Jazz Moods”, for Clark Terry; and “Suite Tanga”, for Mario Bauzá, among others.
Many of his works remain in the repertoires of great jazz performers.
At this time he also founded his own orchestra, in which his son Arturo O’Farrill would take part as pianist.
In 1956 he traveled to Havana and recorded “Chico’s Cha-Cha-Cha”, making arrangements for Bola de Nieve, the Cuarteto D’Aida and the orchestra director Aldemaro Romero.
Back in New York, after a stay in Mexico, he became an arranger for personalities such as La Lupe, Clark Terry, Gato Barbieri, Ringo Starr and David Bowie.
In the 1970s he worked as a musical director for programs and in the making of commercials for television networks.
In 1995 he was nominated for a Grammy Award with his album Pure Emotion.
Until shortly before his death he played with his orchestra at the Birdland Club in New York.
Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill died in New York on June 27, 2001, at the age of 79. In 2016 his remains were transferred to the Colón Cemetery in Havana.
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